Ron Paul Institute for Peace And ProsperityAll Blogs2018http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/rss.aspx?blogid=5
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 04:00:00 GMTTue, 20 Mar 2018 01:05:08 GMTFive Minutes Five Issues: Trump Nominations, School Walkouts, Drug War Executions, Police Drones, UN Drug WarAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud.

Listen to the new episode here:

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.

Issue one.

Some people are expressing concern about, and some United States senators are saying they will oppose, President Donald Trump’s nomination of Mike Pompeo to become secretary of state and of Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director.

Some things concerning to peace supporters are Pompeo having talked up overthrowing the North Korea government and the US military attacking Iran.

Meanwhile, Haspel, reportedly both oversaw a secret CIA prison that employed torture and played an important part in destroying video evidence of torture, potentially inhibiting the proper exercise of oversight by the legislative branch and the prosecution of torturers.

The nominations, whether approved or rejected in the US Senate, are in accord with goals Trump has espoused and demonstrated. In his presidential campaign, Trump praised torture that took place during the George W. Bush administration and said he thought it did not go far enough. To name just a few of Trump’s actions as president to significantly expand US militarism and foreign intervention, Trump has greatly expanded the US military presence and direct US military action in Syria; continued the placing of US troops and weapons near Russia’s border and even approved sending anti-tank missiles to the Ukraine government that came to power via a US-supported coup; imposed escalating sanctions against countries including Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela; and pushed for large increases in US military spending.

Issue two.

It was interesting seeing government schools across America this week accept and encourage students walking out of classes and even leaving school campuses to demonstrate in favor of limiting Americans’ ability to legally possess guns. Many of these schools normally enforce strict truancy policies.

Politics writer James Bovard summed up the situation well in two Wednesday Twitter posts. First, he sarcastically wrote: “Very inspiring that govt. schools are encouraging kids to protest & demand more arbitrary power for police & politicians.” Next, Bovard asked: “#NationalWalkoutDay How many students today recognize that participating in a govt.- approved walkout makes them simply political tools?”

Issue three.

The trend in America has been for there to be less executions of prisoners.

In the January 7, 2017 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about there having been less executions in America in 2016 than in any year since 1991. That number rose in 2017, but still was the second lowest total since 1991.

Despite the trend, President Trump has recently suggested publicly that some people should be executed for being involved in the illegal drugs trade. Further, Dan Diamond reported Thursday at Politico that making the death penalty applicable to some people convicted of drug war crimes is part of the so-called opioid plan the Trump administration is expected to announce soon.

It can’t happen here, you may think. But, think again. In July of 2016, Dallas, Texas police, cornered for hours a person they thought had shot several cops. The police then killed him by detonating explosives on a robot that had been remotely driven up to him under the pretense that the robot was bringing him a phone.

Issue five.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres spoke via video this week at the UN’s Commission on Narcotics Drugs annual meeting in Vienna, Austria. In the comments, Guterres touted Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs spanning marijuana to heroin that occurred in 2001 while Guterres was the nation’s prime minister. Maybe his comments helped budge, at least a little, some of the drug warriors in the audience from their commitment to prohibition.

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.

Five four three two one.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/Sun, 18 Mar 2018 13:05:40 GMT McMaster: US Troops Will Stay Until Syria Is StabilizedJason Ditzhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/

Despite conceding that the US and others had effectively liberated “100%” of ISIS-held territory in Syria, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster dismissed the idea that US forces might withdraw from the country any time soon.

Underscoring the focus on regime change, McMaster demanded that “all civilized nations” come together to punish both Russia and Iran for backing the Syrian government. He warned Assad would not have impunity, and neither would Russia or Iran.

While US officials have been talking up regime change virtually throughout the Syrian War, it has only at times been tied to US military operations in the country, since nominally the US is there to fight ISIS. Still, with ISIS defeated, there is a sense that the troops aren’t leaving, and mission creep is being sought to justified that continued presence.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/Thu, 15 Mar 2018 23:48:43 GMT Lawrence Wilkerson Is Not So Optimistic about a Meeting of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-unAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/14/lawrence-wilkerson-is-not-so-optimistic-about-a-meeting-of-donald-trump-and-kim-jong-un/The Real News interview in which he relates his less-than-optimistic take on an anticipated meeting between North Korea leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump. The meeting’s purposes would apparently include reducing tensions between the two nations and preventing a major military conflict from arising in the Korean region.

Wilkerson, in making this comment, is referring to talks in North Korea capital Pyongyang in the latter months of the Bill Clinton administration between then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Kim Jong-Un’s predecessor and father Kim Jong-il. The expected follow-up visit by Clinton to Pyongyang never materialized. Further, the prior progress was lost in the succeeding George W Bush administration, in which Wilkerson explains that Bush had gathered around him “people like Dick Cheney and John Bolton and others who had made it a point of life to eliminate the agreed framework that Bill Clinton had negotiated with North Korea.” Wilkerson saw much of this firsthand as he notes he was “more or less the right-hand man” of Secretary of State Colin Powell “for actions vis-à-vis North Korea and South Korea” at the State Department, where Wilkerson was Powell’s chief of staff.

Again, Wilkerson expects peace will not be secured due to failures on the US side. In fact, Wilkerson says in the interview that he believes the meeting between the US and North Korea leaders will most likely not happen and that — if it does happen — he does not expect the discussions will result in a peace treaty to truly end the Korean War, which has merely been on a decades-long pause with a cease-fire and demilitarized zone, or in ending the US-South Korea alliance and the presence of US military forces in South Korea.

Among the impediments to reaching such a deal, explains Wilkerson, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity’s Academic Board, is that there will be “a tremendous bureaucratic battle” to maintain the US military presence in South Korea. In this regard, Wilkerson offers as a historical comparison the opposition that met President Jimmy Carter when Carter unsuccessfully sought to reduce the US military presence in South Korea as a potential step toward a full exit. Meanwhile, Wilkerson argues, it “has been a policy of the Kim dynasty since 1954, 1955” to get a peace treaty “by having the United States sit down with it, preferably in Pyongyang, and talk.”

That’s clearly a game-changer, as the US has previously believed that they could carry out the occasional attack against Syrian military targets with impunity. This was the case with the April tomahawk missile attacks against a Syrian air base done over a putative chemical weapon attack, which Russia criticized but didn’t act over.

US officials have been drumming up multiple pretexts for another strike, including more poorly documented chemical weapons incidents, Syrian offensives against rebel factions in Eastern Ghouta, and Syrian airstrikes that are either near or in a de-escalation zone in the Daraa Province.

With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warning of “grave consequences,” and the Russian military talking retaliation, it’s clear US strikes would not be consequence-free. Rather a US strike under any justification would risk a long feared direct war between the US and Russia.

That’s a concern long-standing among US officials, and as recently as December, a top US general was warning US troops to prepare for a “big-ass war” with Russia. Even during the 2016 campaign President Trump made clear he was very aware of the risk of a Syria War leading to a Russia war. Trump will have to manage constant pressure to do more against Syria to avoid steering into such a disastrous conflict.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/14/russia-will-respond-if-us-attacks-syrian-government-forces/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/14/russia-will-respond-if-us-attacks-syrian-government-forces/Wed, 14 Mar 2018 13:12:31 GMT What is Driving New Drive for AUMF?Harperhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/12/what-is-driving-new-drive-for-aumf/

After years of sitting back and letting Congressional authority to declare war transfer to the Executive Branch, it appears that some leading Members of the House and Senate are finally waking up to the consequences of their failure. On February 27, the House Progressive Caucus and the House Liberty Caucus joined forces to hold a hearing on the illegal wars raging in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, demanding that Congress take back the war powers authority. The succession of regime change wars of the post 9/11 period have all been justified by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.

The same day, 100 House Members wrote to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan demanding a new debate on an AUMF related to the ongoing US military operations in Syria. Among the lead signers of the letter was Tom Cole, the fourth ranking Republican in the House. The next day, Senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee sponsored a resolution demanding an immediate debate and vote on an AUMF on the US engagement in Yemen, which the sponsors asserted was clearly a military action under the War Powers Resolution.

Whether these actions go anywhere is anyone's guess at this point. The more immediate question is: What caused the sudden wake up? Could it be that the ongoing US engagement in Syria is bringing the United States closer by the day to a confrontation with Russia? The situation on the ground in Syria has gotten more and more hazardous in the wake of the routing of ISIS in Raqqa. It is hard to tell, day to day, whether a major incident is going to take place, involving rival parties Turkey, Iran, Israel, Hezbollah, the Shia militias, the remnants of ISIS and Al Qaeda, who still have well-armed forces on the ground. Both Russia and the United States have maintained air and ground forces in Syria. The recent incident involving Shia militias, with Russian mercenaries attacking a Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters with US Special Forces present, resulted in US bombings of the pro-Assad forces, with an unclear number of Russians killed.

How much closer do we have to get to an incident which escalates out of control before Congress finally decides to end the string of illegal wars? It was one thing to illegally invade Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen--who possess second rate military forces at best. It is another thing to be engaging in a conflict that could draw the United States and Russia into a direct confrontation.

I cannot say for certain that this is why more than the usual handful of Members of Congress are sounding the alarm. But I hope so.

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.

Issue one.

In a Truthdig editorial last week titled “Is MSNBC Now the Most Dangerous Warmonger Network?” Norman Solomon wrote about a Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) report that found that in the second half of last year TV station MSNBC both “did not run a single segment devoted specifically to Yemen” and “ran nearly 5,000 percent more segments that mentioned Russia than segments that mentioned Yemen.”

MSNBC’s routine mainly negative Russia coverage is part of what Solomon calls “continually piling up the dry tinder of hostility toward Russia” that “boosts the odds of a cataclysmic blowup between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.” Meanwhile, keeping quiet about the Yemen War’s catastrophic consequences and major United States government involvement, helps prevent Americans from demanding the US involvement end.

Issue two.

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) hosted on Tuesday foreign policy speeches by a Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC), a Republican, and Ro Khanna (D-CA), a Democrat, both members of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

Bipartisanship on foreign policy often comes down to advancing foreign intervention and war. But, Jones and Khanna’s presentations showed bipartisanship can advance peace. Comments by Jones, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board, centered on the Afghanistan War, while Khanna’s comments centered on the Yemen War. Both representatives eloquently promoted foreign nonintervention and the importance of Congress debating and voting on whether the US uses military force overseas.

Issue three.

In the September 1, 2016 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about Kristian Saucier’s then-recent sentencing for taking pictures on a submarine he had worked on in the US Navy. The pictures, Steven Nelson had reported at US News and World Report, “were deemed ‘confidential,’ the lowest level for classification.” I contrasted Saucer’s sentence with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James B. Comey announcing there would be no prosecution of Hillary Clinton despite Comey declaring she had been “extremely careless” in handling information with the highest classification levels.

On Friday, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Saucier whose case, Nelson notes in a new Washington Examiner article, Trump mentioned often during the presidential campaign, saying Saucier “was ‘ruined’ for doing ‘nothing’ compared to Hillary Clinton.” Saucier had finished his prison time when the pardon was announced but still wore an ankle monitor. With the pardon, the monitor should be removed from Saucier’s ankle and the conviction removed from his record.

Issue four.

There has been much suggestion since the 2016 mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida that Omar Mateen was motivated by animus toward homosexuals. However, Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain wrote Monday at The Intercept that there is no apparent evidence to support this conclusion, including among new revelations arising from the trial of Mateen’s wife related to the mass murder.

Mateen’s statements and internet posts, write Greenwald and Hussain, “exclusively emphasized one cause: the ongoing killing of Muslim civilians by the U.S.” Further, they note, “[n]one of his statements explaining his motives and cause for the attack make any reference to targeting the gay community or any judgments about homosexuality.” In fact, Greenwald and Hussain declare, “[t]here is no evidence he even knew that Pulse was a gay club” when he targeted it. Mateen, who lived over 100 miles from Orlando, they write, also looked into other “soft targets” in the city that all had no particular connection to gay people.

Issue five.

Consider being wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years for murder and then, upon your release due to your conviction being reversed, receiving no compensation. That, reported Dean Reynolds last week at CBS, is what happened to Lamonte McIntyre who was released from a Kansas prison in October. Kansas, notes Reynolds, is “one of 18 states that offer wrongly convicted prisoners no compensation at all upon their release.”

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.

Five four three two one.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/11/five-minutes-five-issues-msnbc-warmongering-bipartisan-peace-pardon-pulse-killings-wrongful-convictions/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/11/five-minutes-five-issues-msnbc-warmongering-bipartisan-peace-pardon-pulse-killings-wrongful-convictions/Sun, 11 Mar 2018 13:22:33 GMT State Department's War on Political DissentRPI Staffhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/Corbett Report to discuss the neocon/Washington war on dissent in America:

]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/Fri, 09 Mar 2018 01:15:58 GMT Ron Paul: It Looks Like the US will be in Iraq until the US is BankruptAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/editorial earlier this week.

While Paul says in the interview that he wishes the American people would say “enough is enough” and demand an end to the US military intervention, he concludes regarding the US foreign intervention in Iraq and beyond that “I guess we’re gonna continue to do this until we go bankrupt, and then we’ll have to leave.”

The US military, Paul explains in the interview, should have never gone into Iraq in the first place, noting that the justification “was all based on lies.” Plus, says Paul, US intervention in Iraq has created the problem of terrorism in the country after the overthrow of the Iraq government and its leader Saddam Hussein who “was not friendly with al-Qaeda.” “Our policies,” says Paul, “stir up these hatreds and the organizations of the radicals.”

Watch Paul’s complete interview here:

In the Wednesday RT interview, Paul also comments that he thinks the US military involvement in Iraq will continue despite Paul believing President Donald Trump’s inclination is to support bringing the troops home. That inclination, Paul expects, will continue to be overcome by influences including of neoconservatives in the Trump administration and of neoconservative control in media.

In regard to US policy toward both Iraq and North Korea, Paul also comments that the desire for war profits contributes to the US government favoring intervention and militarism. Instead, Paul says at the interview’s conclusion that he thinks it is necessary for the US “to have a completely different foreign policy designed to have peace and trade with people and to talk with people when we have our disagreements.”]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/Thu, 08 Mar 2018 18:37:21 GMT Hypersonic WarRPI Staffhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/Wed, 07 Mar 2018 19:41:54 GMT The Federal Reserve Wins in the Texas Democratic PrimaryAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/

When Texas Democratic Party primary voters filled out their ballots on Tuesday, they encountered two propositions, on which they were invited to vote “for” or “against,” that mentioned the Federal Reserve. One proposition said the party should promote a “national jobs program” for infrastructure projects financed through the Federal Reserve. The other proposition proclaimed that Texans should “have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at a 0% interest rate.” The voters approved both propositions, as they did the other ten propositions on the ballot, with over 90 percent support.

These results may be disappointing for people who understand the detriments of the Federal Reserve, as described in detail in Ron Paul’s book End the Fed, and who think the Federal Reserve should be abolished. But, the results are also understandable. People want good things, whether more jobs or new, improved infrastructure or relief from interest payments on loans, and they are willing to use the Federal Reserve as a means to achieve such.

At the same time, I suspect that Texas Democratic primary voters would not have as overwhelmingly supported propositions stating that the Federal Reserve should be used to support a big increase in drug war incarceration or in the rounding up and deporting of people who are in America in violation of United States immigration laws. More than ten percent of the voters, and maybe even a majority, would, I expect, oppose such proposals given their disagreement with the goals. There also would have been less support for a proposition supporting the Federal Reserve’s long history of facilitating the US government’s militarism and wars.

Here is the text of the two propositions that mention the Federal Reserve:

Proposition #2 Student Loan Debt:

Should everyone in Texas have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at a 0% interest rate, as relief for the crushing burden of debt and an investment in the next generation of Americans?

Proposition #5 National Jobs Program:

Should the Democratic Party promote a national jobs program, with high wage and labor standards, to replace crumbling infrastructure and rebuild hurricane damaged areas, paid for with local, state, and federal bonds financed through the Federal Reserve at low interest with long term maturities?]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/Wed, 07 Mar 2018 18:47:08 GMT Five Minutes Five Issues: Trump Nominations, School Walkouts, Drug War Executions, Police Drones, UN Drug WarAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud.

Listen to the new episode here:

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.

Issue one.

Some people are expressing concern about, and some United States senators are saying they will oppose, President Donald Trump’s nomination of Mike Pompeo to become secretary of state and of Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director.

Some things concerning to peace supporters are Pompeo having talked up overthrowing the North Korea government and the US military attacking Iran.

Meanwhile, Haspel, reportedly both oversaw a secret CIA prison that employed torture and played an important part in destroying video evidence of torture, potentially inhibiting the proper exercise of oversight by the legislative branch and the prosecution of torturers.

The nominations, whether approved or rejected in the US Senate, are in accord with goals Trump has espoused and demonstrated. In his presidential campaign, Trump praised torture that took place during the George W. Bush administration and said he thought it did not go far enough. To name just a few of Trump’s actions as president to significantly expand US militarism and foreign intervention, Trump has greatly expanded the US military presence and direct US military action in Syria; continued the placing of US troops and weapons near Russia’s border and even approved sending anti-tank missiles to the Ukraine government that came to power via a US-supported coup; imposed escalating sanctions against countries including Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela; and pushed for large increases in US military spending.

Issue two.

It was interesting seeing government schools across America this week accept and encourage students walking out of classes and even leaving school campuses to demonstrate in favor of limiting Americans’ ability to legally possess guns. Many of these schools normally enforce strict truancy policies.

Politics writer James Bovard summed up the situation well in two Wednesday Twitter posts. First, he sarcastically wrote: “Very inspiring that govt. schools are encouraging kids to protest & demand more arbitrary power for police & politicians.” Next, Bovard asked: “#NationalWalkoutDay How many students today recognize that participating in a govt.- approved walkout makes them simply political tools?”

Issue three.

The trend in America has been for there to be less executions of prisoners.

In the January 7, 2017 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about there having been less executions in America in 2016 than in any year since 1991. That number rose in 2017, but still was the second lowest total since 1991.

Despite the trend, President Trump has recently suggested publicly that some people should be executed for being involved in the illegal drugs trade. Further, Dan Diamond reported Thursday at Politico that making the death penalty applicable to some people convicted of drug war crimes is part of the so-called opioid plan the Trump administration is expected to announce soon.

It can’t happen here, you may think. But, think again. In July of 2016, Dallas, Texas police, cornered for hours a person they thought had shot several cops. The police then killed him by detonating explosives on a robot that had been remotely driven up to him under the pretense that the robot was bringing him a phone.

Issue five.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres spoke via video this week at the UN’s Commission on Narcotics Drugs annual meeting in Vienna, Austria. In the comments, Guterres touted Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs spanning marijuana to heroin that occurred in 2001 while Guterres was the nation’s prime minister. Maybe his comments helped budge, at least a little, some of the drug warriors in the audience from their commitment to prohibition.

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.

Five four three two one.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/Sun, 18 Mar 2018 13:05:40 GMT McMaster: US Troops Will Stay Until Syria Is StabilizedJason Ditzhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/

Despite conceding that the US and others had effectively liberated “100%” of ISIS-held territory in Syria, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster dismissed the idea that US forces might withdraw from the country any time soon.

Underscoring the focus on regime change, McMaster demanded that “all civilized nations” come together to punish both Russia and Iran for backing the Syrian government. He warned Assad would not have impunity, and neither would Russia or Iran.

While US officials have been talking up regime change virtually throughout the Syrian War, it has only at times been tied to US military operations in the country, since nominally the US is there to fight ISIS. Still, with ISIS defeated, there is a sense that the troops aren’t leaving, and mission creep is being sought to justified that continued presence.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/Thu, 15 Mar 2018 23:48:43 GMT Lawrence Wilkerson Is Not So Optimistic about a Meeting of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-unAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/14/lawrence-wilkerson-is-not-so-optimistic-about-a-meeting-of-donald-trump-and-kim-jong-un/The Real News interview in which he relates his less-than-optimistic take on an anticipated meeting between North Korea leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump. The meeting’s purposes would apparently include reducing tensions between the two nations and preventing a major military conflict from arising in the Korean region.

Wilkerson, in making this comment, is referring to talks in North Korea capital Pyongyang in the latter months of the Bill Clinton administration between then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Kim Jong-Un’s predecessor and father Kim Jong-il. The expected follow-up visit by Clinton to Pyongyang never materialized. Further, the prior progress was lost in the succeeding George W Bush administration, in which Wilkerson explains that Bush had gathered around him “people like Dick Cheney and John Bolton and others who had made it a point of life to eliminate the agreed framework that Bill Clinton had negotiated with North Korea.” Wilkerson saw much of this firsthand as he notes he was “more or less the right-hand man” of Secretary of State Colin Powell “for actions vis-à-vis North Korea and South Korea” at the State Department, where Wilkerson was Powell’s chief of staff.

Again, Wilkerson expects peace will not be secured due to failures on the US side. In fact, Wilkerson says in the interview that he believes the meeting between the US and North Korea leaders will most likely not happen and that — if it does happen — he does not expect the discussions will result in a peace treaty to truly end the Korean War, which has merely been on a decades-long pause with a cease-fire and demilitarized zone, or in ending the US-South Korea alliance and the presence of US military forces in South Korea.

Among the impediments to reaching such a deal, explains Wilkerson, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity’s Academic Board, is that there will be “a tremendous bureaucratic battle” to maintain the US military presence in South Korea. In this regard, Wilkerson offers as a historical comparison the opposition that met President Jimmy Carter when Carter unsuccessfully sought to reduce the US military presence in South Korea as a potential step toward a full exit. Meanwhile, Wilkerson argues, it “has been a policy of the Kim dynasty since 1954, 1955” to get a peace treaty “by having the United States sit down with it, preferably in Pyongyang, and talk.”

That’s clearly a game-changer, as the US has previously believed that they could carry out the occasional attack against Syrian military targets with impunity. This was the case with the April tomahawk missile attacks against a Syrian air base done over a putative chemical weapon attack, which Russia criticized but didn’t act over.

US officials have been drumming up multiple pretexts for another strike, including more poorly documented chemical weapons incidents, Syrian offensives against rebel factions in Eastern Ghouta, and Syrian airstrikes that are either near or in a de-escalation zone in the Daraa Province.

With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warning of “grave consequences,” and the Russian military talking retaliation, it’s clear US strikes would not be consequence-free. Rather a US strike under any justification would risk a long feared direct war between the US and Russia.

That’s a concern long-standing among US officials, and as recently as December, a top US general was warning US troops to prepare for a “big-ass war” with Russia. Even during the 2016 campaign President Trump made clear he was very aware of the risk of a Syria War leading to a Russia war. Trump will have to manage constant pressure to do more against Syria to avoid steering into such a disastrous conflict.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/14/russia-will-respond-if-us-attacks-syrian-government-forces/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/14/russia-will-respond-if-us-attacks-syrian-government-forces/Wed, 14 Mar 2018 13:12:31 GMT What is Driving New Drive for AUMF?Harperhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/12/what-is-driving-new-drive-for-aumf/

After years of sitting back and letting Congressional authority to declare war transfer to the Executive Branch, it appears that some leading Members of the House and Senate are finally waking up to the consequences of their failure. On February 27, the House Progressive Caucus and the House Liberty Caucus joined forces to hold a hearing on the illegal wars raging in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, demanding that Congress take back the war powers authority. The succession of regime change wars of the post 9/11 period have all been justified by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.

The same day, 100 House Members wrote to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan demanding a new debate on an AUMF related to the ongoing US military operations in Syria. Among the lead signers of the letter was Tom Cole, the fourth ranking Republican in the House. The next day, Senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee sponsored a resolution demanding an immediate debate and vote on an AUMF on the US engagement in Yemen, which the sponsors asserted was clearly a military action under the War Powers Resolution.

Whether these actions go anywhere is anyone's guess at this point. The more immediate question is: What caused the sudden wake up? Could it be that the ongoing US engagement in Syria is bringing the United States closer by the day to a confrontation with Russia? The situation on the ground in Syria has gotten more and more hazardous in the wake of the routing of ISIS in Raqqa. It is hard to tell, day to day, whether a major incident is going to take place, involving rival parties Turkey, Iran, Israel, Hezbollah, the Shia militias, the remnants of ISIS and Al Qaeda, who still have well-armed forces on the ground. Both Russia and the United States have maintained air and ground forces in Syria. The recent incident involving Shia militias, with Russian mercenaries attacking a Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters with US Special Forces present, resulted in US bombings of the pro-Assad forces, with an unclear number of Russians killed.

How much closer do we have to get to an incident which escalates out of control before Congress finally decides to end the string of illegal wars? It was one thing to illegally invade Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen--who possess second rate military forces at best. It is another thing to be engaging in a conflict that could draw the United States and Russia into a direct confrontation.

I cannot say for certain that this is why more than the usual handful of Members of Congress are sounding the alarm. But I hope so.

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.

Issue one.

In a Truthdig editorial last week titled “Is MSNBC Now the Most Dangerous Warmonger Network?” Norman Solomon wrote about a Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) report that found that in the second half of last year TV station MSNBC both “did not run a single segment devoted specifically to Yemen” and “ran nearly 5,000 percent more segments that mentioned Russia than segments that mentioned Yemen.”

MSNBC’s routine mainly negative Russia coverage is part of what Solomon calls “continually piling up the dry tinder of hostility toward Russia” that “boosts the odds of a cataclysmic blowup between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.” Meanwhile, keeping quiet about the Yemen War’s catastrophic consequences and major United States government involvement, helps prevent Americans from demanding the US involvement end.

Issue two.

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) hosted on Tuesday foreign policy speeches by a Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC), a Republican, and Ro Khanna (D-CA), a Democrat, both members of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

Bipartisanship on foreign policy often comes down to advancing foreign intervention and war. But, Jones and Khanna’s presentations showed bipartisanship can advance peace. Comments by Jones, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board, centered on the Afghanistan War, while Khanna’s comments centered on the Yemen War. Both representatives eloquently promoted foreign nonintervention and the importance of Congress debating and voting on whether the US uses military force overseas.

Issue three.

In the September 1, 2016 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about Kristian Saucier’s then-recent sentencing for taking pictures on a submarine he had worked on in the US Navy. The pictures, Steven Nelson had reported at US News and World Report, “were deemed ‘confidential,’ the lowest level for classification.” I contrasted Saucer’s sentence with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James B. Comey announcing there would be no prosecution of Hillary Clinton despite Comey declaring she had been “extremely careless” in handling information with the highest classification levels.

On Friday, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Saucier whose case, Nelson notes in a new Washington Examiner article, Trump mentioned often during the presidential campaign, saying Saucier “was ‘ruined’ for doing ‘nothing’ compared to Hillary Clinton.” Saucier had finished his prison time when the pardon was announced but still wore an ankle monitor. With the pardon, the monitor should be removed from Saucier’s ankle and the conviction removed from his record.

Issue four.

There has been much suggestion since the 2016 mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida that Omar Mateen was motivated by animus toward homosexuals. However, Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain wrote Monday at The Intercept that there is no apparent evidence to support this conclusion, including among new revelations arising from the trial of Mateen’s wife related to the mass murder.

Mateen’s statements and internet posts, write Greenwald and Hussain, “exclusively emphasized one cause: the ongoing killing of Muslim civilians by the U.S.” Further, they note, “[n]one of his statements explaining his motives and cause for the attack make any reference to targeting the gay community or any judgments about homosexuality.” In fact, Greenwald and Hussain declare, “[t]here is no evidence he even knew that Pulse was a gay club” when he targeted it. Mateen, who lived over 100 miles from Orlando, they write, also looked into other “soft targets” in the city that all had no particular connection to gay people.

Issue five.

Consider being wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years for murder and then, upon your release due to your conviction being reversed, receiving no compensation. That, reported Dean Reynolds last week at CBS, is what happened to Lamonte McIntyre who was released from a Kansas prison in October. Kansas, notes Reynolds, is “one of 18 states that offer wrongly convicted prisoners no compensation at all upon their release.”

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.

Five four three two one.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/11/five-minutes-five-issues-msnbc-warmongering-bipartisan-peace-pardon-pulse-killings-wrongful-convictions/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/11/five-minutes-five-issues-msnbc-warmongering-bipartisan-peace-pardon-pulse-killings-wrongful-convictions/Sun, 11 Mar 2018 13:22:33 GMT State Department's War on Political DissentRPI Staffhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/Corbett Report to discuss the neocon/Washington war on dissent in America:

]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/Fri, 09 Mar 2018 01:15:58 GMT Ron Paul: It Looks Like the US will be in Iraq until the US is BankruptAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/editorial earlier this week.

While Paul says in the interview that he wishes the American people would say “enough is enough” and demand an end to the US military intervention, he concludes regarding the US foreign intervention in Iraq and beyond that “I guess we’re gonna continue to do this until we go bankrupt, and then we’ll have to leave.”

The US military, Paul explains in the interview, should have never gone into Iraq in the first place, noting that the justification “was all based on lies.” Plus, says Paul, US intervention in Iraq has created the problem of terrorism in the country after the overthrow of the Iraq government and its leader Saddam Hussein who “was not friendly with al-Qaeda.” “Our policies,” says Paul, “stir up these hatreds and the organizations of the radicals.”

Watch Paul’s complete interview here:

In the Wednesday RT interview, Paul also comments that he thinks the US military involvement in Iraq will continue despite Paul believing President Donald Trump’s inclination is to support bringing the troops home. That inclination, Paul expects, will continue to be overcome by influences including of neoconservatives in the Trump administration and of neoconservative control in media.

In regard to US policy toward both Iraq and North Korea, Paul also comments that the desire for war profits contributes to the US government favoring intervention and militarism. Instead, Paul says at the interview’s conclusion that he thinks it is necessary for the US “to have a completely different foreign policy designed to have peace and trade with people and to talk with people when we have our disagreements.”]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/Thu, 08 Mar 2018 18:37:21 GMT Hypersonic WarRPI Staffhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/Wed, 07 Mar 2018 19:41:54 GMT The Federal Reserve Wins in the Texas Democratic PrimaryAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/

When Texas Democratic Party primary voters filled out their ballots on Tuesday, they encountered two propositions, on which they were invited to vote “for” or “against,” that mentioned the Federal Reserve. One proposition said the party should promote a “national jobs program” for infrastructure projects financed through the Federal Reserve. The other proposition proclaimed that Texans should “have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at a 0% interest rate.” The voters approved both propositions, as they did the other ten propositions on the ballot, with over 90 percent support.

These results may be disappointing for people who understand the detriments of the Federal Reserve, as described in detail in Ron Paul’s book End the Fed, and who think the Federal Reserve should be abolished. But, the results are also understandable. People want good things, whether more jobs or new, improved infrastructure or relief from interest payments on loans, and they are willing to use the Federal Reserve as a means to achieve such.

At the same time, I suspect that Texas Democratic primary voters would not have as overwhelmingly supported propositions stating that the Federal Reserve should be used to support a big increase in drug war incarceration or in the rounding up and deporting of people who are in America in violation of United States immigration laws. More than ten percent of the voters, and maybe even a majority, would, I expect, oppose such proposals given their disagreement with the goals. There also would have been less support for a proposition supporting the Federal Reserve’s long history of facilitating the US government’s militarism and wars.

Here is the text of the two propositions that mention the Federal Reserve:

Proposition #2 Student Loan Debt:

Should everyone in Texas have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at a 0% interest rate, as relief for the crushing burden of debt and an investment in the next generation of Americans?

Proposition #5 National Jobs Program:

Should the Democratic Party promote a national jobs program, with high wage and labor standards, to replace crumbling infrastructure and rebuild hurricane damaged areas, paid for with local, state, and federal bonds financed through the Federal Reserve at low interest with long term maturities?]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/Wed, 07 Mar 2018 18:47:08 GMT Five Minutes Five Issues: Trump Nominations, School Walkouts, Drug War Executions, Police Drones, UN Drug WarAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud.

Listen to the new episode here:

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.

Issue one.

Some people are expressing concern about, and some United States senators are saying they will oppose, President Donald Trump’s nomination of Mike Pompeo to become secretary of state and of Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director.

Some things concerning to peace supporters are Pompeo having talked up overthrowing the North Korea government and the US military attacking Iran.

Meanwhile, Haspel, reportedly both oversaw a secret CIA prison that employed torture and played an important part in destroying video evidence of torture, potentially inhibiting the proper exercise of oversight by the legislative branch and the prosecution of torturers.

The nominations, whether approved or rejected in the US Senate, are in accord with goals Trump has espoused and demonstrated. In his presidential campaign, Trump praised torture that took place during the George W. Bush administration and said he thought it did not go far enough. To name just a few of Trump’s actions as president to significantly expand US militarism and foreign intervention, Trump has greatly expanded the US military presence and direct US military action in Syria; continued the placing of US troops and weapons near Russia’s border and even approved sending anti-tank missiles to the Ukraine government that came to power via a US-supported coup; imposed escalating sanctions against countries including Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela; and pushed for large increases in US military spending.

Issue two.

It was interesting seeing government schools across America this week accept and encourage students walking out of classes and even leaving school campuses to demonstrate in favor of limiting Americans’ ability to legally possess guns. Many of these schools normally enforce strict truancy policies.

Politics writer James Bovard summed up the situation well in two Wednesday Twitter posts. First, he sarcastically wrote: “Very inspiring that govt. schools are encouraging kids to protest & demand more arbitrary power for police & politicians.” Next, Bovard asked: “#NationalWalkoutDay How many students today recognize that participating in a govt.- approved walkout makes them simply political tools?”

Issue three.

The trend in America has been for there to be less executions of prisoners.

In the January 7, 2017 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about there having been less executions in America in 2016 than in any year since 1991. That number rose in 2017, but still was the second lowest total since 1991.

Despite the trend, President Trump has recently suggested publicly that some people should be executed for being involved in the illegal drugs trade. Further, Dan Diamond reported Thursday at Politico that making the death penalty applicable to some people convicted of drug war crimes is part of the so-called opioid plan the Trump administration is expected to announce soon.

It can’t happen here, you may think. But, think again. In July of 2016, Dallas, Texas police, cornered for hours a person they thought had shot several cops. The police then killed him by detonating explosives on a robot that had been remotely driven up to him under the pretense that the robot was bringing him a phone.

Issue five.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres spoke via video this week at the UN’s Commission on Narcotics Drugs annual meeting in Vienna, Austria. In the comments, Guterres touted Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs spanning marijuana to heroin that occurred in 2001 while Guterres was the nation’s prime minister. Maybe his comments helped budge, at least a little, some of the drug warriors in the audience from their commitment to prohibition.

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.

Five four three two one.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/Sun, 18 Mar 2018 13:05:40 GMT McMaster: US Troops Will Stay Until Syria Is StabilizedJason Ditzhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/

Despite conceding that the US and others had effectively liberated “100%” of ISIS-held territory in Syria, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster dismissed the idea that US forces might withdraw from the country any time soon.

Underscoring the focus on regime change, McMaster demanded that “all civilized nations” come together to punish both Russia and Iran for backing the Syrian government. He warned Assad would not have impunity, and neither would Russia or Iran.

While US officials have been talking up regime change virtually throughout the Syrian War, it has only at times been tied to US military operations in the country, since nominally the US is there to fight ISIS. Still, with ISIS defeated, there is a sense that the troops aren’t leaving, and mission creep is being sought to justified that continued presence.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/Thu, 15 Mar 2018 23:48:43 GMT Lawrence Wilkerson Is Not So Optimistic about a Meeting of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-unAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/14/lawrence-wilkerson-is-not-so-optimistic-about-a-meeting-of-donald-trump-and-kim-jong-un/The Real News interview in which he relates his less-than-optimistic take on an anticipated meeting between North Korea leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump. The meeting’s purposes would apparently include reducing tensions between the two nations and preventing a major military conflict from arising in the Korean region.

Wilkerson, in making this comment, is referring to talks in North Korea capital Pyongyang in the latter months of the Bill Clinton administration between then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Kim Jong-Un’s predecessor and father Kim Jong-il. The expected follow-up visit by Clinton to Pyongyang never materialized. Further, the prior progress was lost in the succeeding George W Bush administration, in which Wilkerson explains that Bush had gathered around him “people like Dick Cheney and John Bolton and others who had made it a point of life to eliminate the agreed framework that Bill Clinton had negotiated with North Korea.” Wilkerson saw much of this firsthand as he notes he was “more or less the right-hand man” of Secretary of State Colin Powell “for actions vis-à-vis North Korea and South Korea” at the State Department, where Wilkerson was Powell’s chief of staff.

Again, Wilkerson expects peace will not be secured due to failures on the US side. In fact, Wilkerson says in the interview that he believes the meeting between the US and North Korea leaders will most likely not happen and that — if it does happen — he does not expect the discussions will result in a peace treaty to truly end the Korean War, which has merely been on a decades-long pause with a cease-fire and demilitarized zone, or in ending the US-South Korea alliance and the presence of US military forces in South Korea.

Among the impediments to reaching such a deal, explains Wilkerson, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity’s Academic Board, is that there will be “a tremendous bureaucratic battle” to maintain the US military presence in South Korea. In this regard, Wilkerson offers as a historical comparison the opposition that met President Jimmy Carter when Carter unsuccessfully sought to reduce the US military presence in South Korea as a potential step toward a full exit. Meanwhile, Wilkerson argues, it “has been a policy of the Kim dynasty since 1954, 1955” to get a peace treaty “by having the United States sit down with it, preferably in Pyongyang, and talk.”

That’s clearly a game-changer, as the US has previously believed that they could carry out the occasional attack against Syrian military targets with impunity. This was the case with the April tomahawk missile attacks against a Syrian air base done over a putative chemical weapon attack, which Russia criticized but didn’t act over.

US officials have been drumming up multiple pretexts for another strike, including more poorly documented chemical weapons incidents, Syrian offensives against rebel factions in Eastern Ghouta, and Syrian airstrikes that are either near or in a de-escalation zone in the Daraa Province.

With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warning of “grave consequences,” and the Russian military talking retaliation, it’s clear US strikes would not be consequence-free. Rather a US strike under any justification would risk a long feared direct war between the US and Russia.

That’s a concern long-standing among US officials, and as recently as December, a top US general was warning US troops to prepare for a “big-ass war” with Russia. Even during the 2016 campaign President Trump made clear he was very aware of the risk of a Syria War leading to a Russia war. Trump will have to manage constant pressure to do more against Syria to avoid steering into such a disastrous conflict.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/14/russia-will-respond-if-us-attacks-syrian-government-forces/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/14/russia-will-respond-if-us-attacks-syrian-government-forces/Wed, 14 Mar 2018 13:12:31 GMT What is Driving New Drive for AUMF?Harperhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/12/what-is-driving-new-drive-for-aumf/

After years of sitting back and letting Congressional authority to declare war transfer to the Executive Branch, it appears that some leading Members of the House and Senate are finally waking up to the consequences of their failure. On February 27, the House Progressive Caucus and the House Liberty Caucus joined forces to hold a hearing on the illegal wars raging in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, demanding that Congress take back the war powers authority. The succession of regime change wars of the post 9/11 period have all been justified by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.

The same day, 100 House Members wrote to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan demanding a new debate on an AUMF related to the ongoing US military operations in Syria. Among the lead signers of the letter was Tom Cole, the fourth ranking Republican in the House. The next day, Senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee sponsored a resolution demanding an immediate debate and vote on an AUMF on the US engagement in Yemen, which the sponsors asserted was clearly a military action under the War Powers Resolution.

Whether these actions go anywhere is anyone's guess at this point. The more immediate question is: What caused the sudden wake up? Could it be that the ongoing US engagement in Syria is bringing the United States closer by the day to a confrontation with Russia? The situation on the ground in Syria has gotten more and more hazardous in the wake of the routing of ISIS in Raqqa. It is hard to tell, day to day, whether a major incident is going to take place, involving rival parties Turkey, Iran, Israel, Hezbollah, the Shia militias, the remnants of ISIS and Al Qaeda, who still have well-armed forces on the ground. Both Russia and the United States have maintained air and ground forces in Syria. The recent incident involving Shia militias, with Russian mercenaries attacking a Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters with US Special Forces present, resulted in US bombings of the pro-Assad forces, with an unclear number of Russians killed.

How much closer do we have to get to an incident which escalates out of control before Congress finally decides to end the string of illegal wars? It was one thing to illegally invade Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen--who possess second rate military forces at best. It is another thing to be engaging in a conflict that could draw the United States and Russia into a direct confrontation.

I cannot say for certain that this is why more than the usual handful of Members of Congress are sounding the alarm. But I hope so.

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.

Issue one.

In a Truthdig editorial last week titled “Is MSNBC Now the Most Dangerous Warmonger Network?” Norman Solomon wrote about a Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) report that found that in the second half of last year TV station MSNBC both “did not run a single segment devoted specifically to Yemen” and “ran nearly 5,000 percent more segments that mentioned Russia than segments that mentioned Yemen.”

MSNBC’s routine mainly negative Russia coverage is part of what Solomon calls “continually piling up the dry tinder of hostility toward Russia” that “boosts the odds of a cataclysmic blowup between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.” Meanwhile, keeping quiet about the Yemen War’s catastrophic consequences and major United States government involvement, helps prevent Americans from demanding the US involvement end.

Issue two.

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) hosted on Tuesday foreign policy speeches by a Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC), a Republican, and Ro Khanna (D-CA), a Democrat, both members of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

Bipartisanship on foreign policy often comes down to advancing foreign intervention and war. But, Jones and Khanna’s presentations showed bipartisanship can advance peace. Comments by Jones, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board, centered on the Afghanistan War, while Khanna’s comments centered on the Yemen War. Both representatives eloquently promoted foreign nonintervention and the importance of Congress debating and voting on whether the US uses military force overseas.

Issue three.

In the September 1, 2016 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about Kristian Saucier’s then-recent sentencing for taking pictures on a submarine he had worked on in the US Navy. The pictures, Steven Nelson had reported at US News and World Report, “were deemed ‘confidential,’ the lowest level for classification.” I contrasted Saucer’s sentence with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James B. Comey announcing there would be no prosecution of Hillary Clinton despite Comey declaring she had been “extremely careless” in handling information with the highest classification levels.

On Friday, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Saucier whose case, Nelson notes in a new Washington Examiner article, Trump mentioned often during the presidential campaign, saying Saucier “was ‘ruined’ for doing ‘nothing’ compared to Hillary Clinton.” Saucier had finished his prison time when the pardon was announced but still wore an ankle monitor. With the pardon, the monitor should be removed from Saucier’s ankle and the conviction removed from his record.

Issue four.

There has been much suggestion since the 2016 mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida that Omar Mateen was motivated by animus toward homosexuals. However, Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain wrote Monday at The Intercept that there is no apparent evidence to support this conclusion, including among new revelations arising from the trial of Mateen’s wife related to the mass murder.

Mateen’s statements and internet posts, write Greenwald and Hussain, “exclusively emphasized one cause: the ongoing killing of Muslim civilians by the U.S.” Further, they note, “[n]one of his statements explaining his motives and cause for the attack make any reference to targeting the gay community or any judgments about homosexuality.” In fact, Greenwald and Hussain declare, “[t]here is no evidence he even knew that Pulse was a gay club” when he targeted it. Mateen, who lived over 100 miles from Orlando, they write, also looked into other “soft targets” in the city that all had no particular connection to gay people.

Issue five.

Consider being wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years for murder and then, upon your release due to your conviction being reversed, receiving no compensation. That, reported Dean Reynolds last week at CBS, is what happened to Lamonte McIntyre who was released from a Kansas prison in October. Kansas, notes Reynolds, is “one of 18 states that offer wrongly convicted prisoners no compensation at all upon their release.”

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.

Five four three two one.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/11/five-minutes-five-issues-msnbc-warmongering-bipartisan-peace-pardon-pulse-killings-wrongful-convictions/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/11/five-minutes-five-issues-msnbc-warmongering-bipartisan-peace-pardon-pulse-killings-wrongful-convictions/Sun, 11 Mar 2018 13:22:33 GMT State Department's War on Political DissentRPI Staffhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/Corbett Report to discuss the neocon/Washington war on dissent in America:

]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/Fri, 09 Mar 2018 01:15:58 GMT Ron Paul: It Looks Like the US will be in Iraq until the US is BankruptAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/editorial earlier this week.

While Paul says in the interview that he wishes the American people would say “enough is enough” and demand an end to the US military intervention, he concludes regarding the US foreign intervention in Iraq and beyond that “I guess we’re gonna continue to do this until we go bankrupt, and then we’ll have to leave.”

The US military, Paul explains in the interview, should have never gone into Iraq in the first place, noting that the justification “was all based on lies.” Plus, says Paul, US intervention in Iraq has created the problem of terrorism in the country after the overthrow of the Iraq government and its leader Saddam Hussein who “was not friendly with al-Qaeda.” “Our policies,” says Paul, “stir up these hatreds and the organizations of the radicals.”

Watch Paul’s complete interview here:

In the Wednesday RT interview, Paul also comments that he thinks the US military involvement in Iraq will continue despite Paul believing President Donald Trump’s inclination is to support bringing the troops home. That inclination, Paul expects, will continue to be overcome by influences including of neoconservatives in the Trump administration and of neoconservative control in media.

In regard to US policy toward both Iraq and North Korea, Paul also comments that the desire for war profits contributes to the US government favoring intervention and militarism. Instead, Paul says at the interview’s conclusion that he thinks it is necessary for the US “to have a completely different foreign policy designed to have peace and trade with people and to talk with people when we have our disagreements.”]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/Thu, 08 Mar 2018 18:37:21 GMT Hypersonic WarRPI Staffhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/Wed, 07 Mar 2018 19:41:54 GMT The Federal Reserve Wins in the Texas Democratic PrimaryAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/

When Texas Democratic Party primary voters filled out their ballots on Tuesday, they encountered two propositions, on which they were invited to vote “for” or “against,” that mentioned the Federal Reserve. One proposition said the party should promote a “national jobs program” for infrastructure projects financed through the Federal Reserve. The other proposition proclaimed that Texans should “have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at a 0% interest rate.” The voters approved both propositions, as they did the other ten propositions on the ballot, with over 90 percent support.

These results may be disappointing for people who understand the detriments of the Federal Reserve, as described in detail in Ron Paul’s book End the Fed, and who think the Federal Reserve should be abolished. But, the results are also understandable. People want good things, whether more jobs or new, improved infrastructure or relief from interest payments on loans, and they are willing to use the Federal Reserve as a means to achieve such.

At the same time, I suspect that Texas Democratic primary voters would not have as overwhelmingly supported propositions stating that the Federal Reserve should be used to support a big increase in drug war incarceration or in the rounding up and deporting of people who are in America in violation of United States immigration laws. More than ten percent of the voters, and maybe even a majority, would, I expect, oppose such proposals given their disagreement with the goals. There also would have been less support for a proposition supporting the Federal Reserve’s long history of facilitating the US government’s militarism and wars.

Here is the text of the two propositions that mention the Federal Reserve:

Proposition #2 Student Loan Debt:

Should everyone in Texas have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at a 0% interest rate, as relief for the crushing burden of debt and an investment in the next generation of Americans?

Proposition #5 National Jobs Program:

Should the Democratic Party promote a national jobs program, with high wage and labor standards, to replace crumbling infrastructure and rebuild hurricane damaged areas, paid for with local, state, and federal bonds financed through the Federal Reserve at low interest with long term maturities?]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/neocon-watch/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/Wed, 07 Mar 2018 18:47:08 GMT Five Minutes Five Issues: Trump Nominations, School Walkouts, Drug War Executions, Police Drones, UN Drug WarAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud.

Listen to the new episode here:

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.

Issue one.

Some people are expressing concern about, and some United States senators are saying they will oppose, President Donald Trump’s nomination of Mike Pompeo to become secretary of state and of Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director.

Some things concerning to peace supporters are Pompeo having talked up overthrowing the North Korea government and the US military attacking Iran.

Meanwhile, Haspel, reportedly both oversaw a secret CIA prison that employed torture and played an important part in destroying video evidence of torture, potentially inhibiting the proper exercise of oversight by the legislative branch and the prosecution of torturers.

The nominations, whether approved or rejected in the US Senate, are in accord with goals Trump has espoused and demonstrated. In his presidential campaign, Trump praised torture that took place during the George W. Bush administration and said he thought it did not go far enough. To name just a few of Trump’s actions as president to significantly expand US militarism and foreign intervention, Trump has greatly expanded the US military presence and direct US military action in Syria; continued the placing of US troops and weapons near Russia’s border and even approved sending anti-tank missiles to the Ukraine government that came to power via a US-supported coup; imposed escalating sanctions against countries including Russia, North Korea, and Venezuela; and pushed for large increases in US military spending.

Issue two.

It was interesting seeing government schools across America this week accept and encourage students walking out of classes and even leaving school campuses to demonstrate in favor of limiting Americans’ ability to legally possess guns. Many of these schools normally enforce strict truancy policies.

Politics writer James Bovard summed up the situation well in two Wednesday Twitter posts. First, he sarcastically wrote: “Very inspiring that govt. schools are encouraging kids to protest & demand more arbitrary power for police & politicians.” Next, Bovard asked: “#NationalWalkoutDay How many students today recognize that participating in a govt.- approved walkout makes them simply political tools?”

Issue three.

The trend in America has been for there to be less executions of prisoners.

In the January 7, 2017 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about there having been less executions in America in 2016 than in any year since 1991. That number rose in 2017, but still was the second lowest total since 1991.

Despite the trend, President Trump has recently suggested publicly that some people should be executed for being involved in the illegal drugs trade. Further, Dan Diamond reported Thursday at Politico that making the death penalty applicable to some people convicted of drug war crimes is part of the so-called opioid plan the Trump administration is expected to announce soon.

It can’t happen here, you may think. But, think again. In July of 2016, Dallas, Texas police, cornered for hours a person they thought had shot several cops. The police then killed him by detonating explosives on a robot that had been remotely driven up to him under the pretense that the robot was bringing him a phone.

Issue five.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres spoke via video this week at the UN’s Commission on Narcotics Drugs annual meeting in Vienna, Austria. In the comments, Guterres touted Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs spanning marijuana to heroin that occurred in 2001 while Guterres was the nation’s prime minister. Maybe his comments helped budge, at least a little, some of the drug warriors in the audience from their commitment to prohibition.

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.

Five four three two one.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/18/five-minutes-five-issues-trump-nominations-school-walkouts-drug-war-executions-police-drones-un-drug-war/Sun, 18 Mar 2018 13:05:40 GMT McMaster: US Troops Will Stay Until Syria Is StabilizedJason Ditzhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/

Despite conceding that the US and others had effectively liberated “100%” of ISIS-held territory in Syria, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster dismissed the idea that US forces might withdraw from the country any time soon.

Underscoring the focus on regime change, McMaster demanded that “all civilized nations” come together to punish both Russia and Iran for backing the Syrian government. He warned Assad would not have impunity, and neither would Russia or Iran.

While US officials have been talking up regime change virtually throughout the Syrian War, it has only at times been tied to US military operations in the country, since nominally the US is there to fight ISIS. Still, with ISIS defeated, there is a sense that the troops aren’t leaving, and mission creep is being sought to justified that continued presence.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/15/mcmaster-us-troops-will-stay-until-syria-is-stabilized/Thu, 15 Mar 2018 23:48:43 GMT Lawrence Wilkerson Is Not So Optimistic about a Meeting of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-unAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/14/lawrence-wilkerson-is-not-so-optimistic-about-a-meeting-of-donald-trump-and-kim-jong-un/The Real News interview in which he relates his less-than-optimistic take on an anticipated meeting between North Korea leader Kim Jong-un and United States President Donald Trump. The meeting’s purposes would apparently include reducing tensions between the two nations and preventing a major military conflict from arising in the Korean region.

Wilkerson, in making this comment, is referring to talks in North Korea capital Pyongyang in the latter months of the Bill Clinton administration between then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Kim Jong-Un’s predecessor and father Kim Jong-il. The expected follow-up visit by Clinton to Pyongyang never materialized. Further, the prior progress was lost in the succeeding George W Bush administration, in which Wilkerson explains that Bush had gathered around him “people like Dick Cheney and John Bolton and others who had made it a point of life to eliminate the agreed framework that Bill Clinton had negotiated with North Korea.” Wilkerson saw much of this firsthand as he notes he was “more or less the right-hand man” of Secretary of State Colin Powell “for actions vis-à-vis North Korea and South Korea” at the State Department, where Wilkerson was Powell’s chief of staff.

Again, Wilkerson expects peace will not be secured due to failures on the US side. In fact, Wilkerson says in the interview that he believes the meeting between the US and North Korea leaders will most likely not happen and that — if it does happen — he does not expect the discussions will result in a peace treaty to truly end the Korean War, which has merely been on a decades-long pause with a cease-fire and demilitarized zone, or in ending the US-South Korea alliance and the presence of US military forces in South Korea.

Among the impediments to reaching such a deal, explains Wilkerson, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity’s Academic Board, is that there will be “a tremendous bureaucratic battle” to maintain the US military presence in South Korea. In this regard, Wilkerson offers as a historical comparison the opposition that met President Jimmy Carter when Carter unsuccessfully sought to reduce the US military presence in South Korea as a potential step toward a full exit. Meanwhile, Wilkerson argues, it “has been a policy of the Kim dynasty since 1954, 1955” to get a peace treaty “by having the United States sit down with it, preferably in Pyongyang, and talk.”

That’s clearly a game-changer, as the US has previously believed that they could carry out the occasional attack against Syrian military targets with impunity. This was the case with the April tomahawk missile attacks against a Syrian air base done over a putative chemical weapon attack, which Russia criticized but didn’t act over.

US officials have been drumming up multiple pretexts for another strike, including more poorly documented chemical weapons incidents, Syrian offensives against rebel factions in Eastern Ghouta, and Syrian airstrikes that are either near or in a de-escalation zone in the Daraa Province.

With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warning of “grave consequences,” and the Russian military talking retaliation, it’s clear US strikes would not be consequence-free. Rather a US strike under any justification would risk a long feared direct war between the US and Russia.

That’s a concern long-standing among US officials, and as recently as December, a top US general was warning US troops to prepare for a “big-ass war” with Russia. Even during the 2016 campaign President Trump made clear he was very aware of the risk of a Syria War leading to a Russia war. Trump will have to manage constant pressure to do more against Syria to avoid steering into such a disastrous conflict.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/14/russia-will-respond-if-us-attacks-syrian-government-forces/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/14/russia-will-respond-if-us-attacks-syrian-government-forces/Wed, 14 Mar 2018 13:12:31 GMT What is Driving New Drive for AUMF?Harperhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/12/what-is-driving-new-drive-for-aumf/

After years of sitting back and letting Congressional authority to declare war transfer to the Executive Branch, it appears that some leading Members of the House and Senate are finally waking up to the consequences of their failure. On February 27, the House Progressive Caucus and the House Liberty Caucus joined forces to hold a hearing on the illegal wars raging in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq, demanding that Congress take back the war powers authority. The succession of regime change wars of the post 9/11 period have all been justified by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was passed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.

The same day, 100 House Members wrote to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan demanding a new debate on an AUMF related to the ongoing US military operations in Syria. Among the lead signers of the letter was Tom Cole, the fourth ranking Republican in the House. The next day, Senators Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Mike Lee sponsored a resolution demanding an immediate debate and vote on an AUMF on the US engagement in Yemen, which the sponsors asserted was clearly a military action under the War Powers Resolution.

Whether these actions go anywhere is anyone's guess at this point. The more immediate question is: What caused the sudden wake up? Could it be that the ongoing US engagement in Syria is bringing the United States closer by the day to a confrontation with Russia? The situation on the ground in Syria has gotten more and more hazardous in the wake of the routing of ISIS in Raqqa. It is hard to tell, day to day, whether a major incident is going to take place, involving rival parties Turkey, Iran, Israel, Hezbollah, the Shia militias, the remnants of ISIS and Al Qaeda, who still have well-armed forces on the ground. Both Russia and the United States have maintained air and ground forces in Syria. The recent incident involving Shia militias, with Russian mercenaries attacking a Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters with US Special Forces present, resulted in US bombings of the pro-Assad forces, with an unclear number of Russians killed.

How much closer do we have to get to an incident which escalates out of control before Congress finally decides to end the string of illegal wars? It was one thing to illegally invade Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen--who possess second rate military forces at best. It is another thing to be engaging in a conflict that could draw the United States and Russia into a direct confrontation.

I cannot say for certain that this is why more than the usual handful of Members of Congress are sounding the alarm. But I hope so.

Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.

Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.

Issue one.

In a Truthdig editorial last week titled “Is MSNBC Now the Most Dangerous Warmonger Network?” Norman Solomon wrote about a Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) report that found that in the second half of last year TV station MSNBC both “did not run a single segment devoted specifically to Yemen” and “ran nearly 5,000 percent more segments that mentioned Russia than segments that mentioned Yemen.”

MSNBC’s routine mainly negative Russia coverage is part of what Solomon calls “continually piling up the dry tinder of hostility toward Russia” that “boosts the odds of a cataclysmic blowup between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.” Meanwhile, keeping quiet about the Yemen War’s catastrophic consequences and major United States government involvement, helps prevent Americans from demanding the US involvement end.

Issue two.

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) hosted on Tuesday foreign policy speeches by a Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC), a Republican, and Ro Khanna (D-CA), a Democrat, both members of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

Bipartisanship on foreign policy often comes down to advancing foreign intervention and war. But, Jones and Khanna’s presentations showed bipartisanship can advance peace. Comments by Jones, who is a member of the Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board, centered on the Afghanistan War, while Khanna’s comments centered on the Yemen War. Both representatives eloquently promoted foreign nonintervention and the importance of Congress debating and voting on whether the US uses military force overseas.

Issue three.

In the September 1, 2016 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues, I talked about Kristian Saucier’s then-recent sentencing for taking pictures on a submarine he had worked on in the US Navy. The pictures, Steven Nelson had reported at US News and World Report, “were deemed ‘confidential,’ the lowest level for classification.” I contrasted Saucer’s sentence with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James B. Comey announcing there would be no prosecution of Hillary Clinton despite Comey declaring she had been “extremely careless” in handling information with the highest classification levels.

On Friday, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Saucier whose case, Nelson notes in a new Washington Examiner article, Trump mentioned often during the presidential campaign, saying Saucier “was ‘ruined’ for doing ‘nothing’ compared to Hillary Clinton.” Saucier had finished his prison time when the pardon was announced but still wore an ankle monitor. With the pardon, the monitor should be removed from Saucier’s ankle and the conviction removed from his record.

Issue four.

There has been much suggestion since the 2016 mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida that Omar Mateen was motivated by animus toward homosexuals. However, Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain wrote Monday at The Intercept that there is no apparent evidence to support this conclusion, including among new revelations arising from the trial of Mateen’s wife related to the mass murder.

Mateen’s statements and internet posts, write Greenwald and Hussain, “exclusively emphasized one cause: the ongoing killing of Muslim civilians by the U.S.” Further, they note, “[n]one of his statements explaining his motives and cause for the attack make any reference to targeting the gay community or any judgments about homosexuality.” In fact, Greenwald and Hussain declare, “[t]here is no evidence he even knew that Pulse was a gay club” when he targeted it. Mateen, who lived over 100 miles from Orlando, they write, also looked into other “soft targets” in the city that all had no particular connection to gay people.

Issue five.

Consider being wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years for murder and then, upon your release due to your conviction being reversed, receiving no compensation. That, reported Dean Reynolds last week at CBS, is what happened to Lamonte McIntyre who was released from a Kansas prison in October. Kansas, notes Reynolds, is “one of 18 states that offer wrongly convicted prisoners no compensation at all upon their release.”

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.

Five four three two one.]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/11/five-minutes-five-issues-msnbc-warmongering-bipartisan-peace-pardon-pulse-killings-wrongful-convictions/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/11/five-minutes-five-issues-msnbc-warmongering-bipartisan-peace-pardon-pulse-killings-wrongful-convictions/Sun, 11 Mar 2018 13:22:33 GMT State Department's War on Political DissentRPI Staffhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/Corbett Report to discuss the neocon/Washington war on dissent in America:

]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/08/state-departments-war-on-political-dissent/Fri, 09 Mar 2018 01:15:58 GMT Ron Paul: It Looks Like the US will be in Iraq until the US is BankruptAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/editorial earlier this week.

While Paul says in the interview that he wishes the American people would say “enough is enough” and demand an end to the US military intervention, he concludes regarding the US foreign intervention in Iraq and beyond that “I guess we’re gonna continue to do this until we go bankrupt, and then we’ll have to leave.”

The US military, Paul explains in the interview, should have never gone into Iraq in the first place, noting that the justification “was all based on lies.” Plus, says Paul, US intervention in Iraq has created the problem of terrorism in the country after the overthrow of the Iraq government and its leader Saddam Hussein who “was not friendly with al-Qaeda.” “Our policies,” says Paul, “stir up these hatreds and the organizations of the radicals.”

Watch Paul’s complete interview here:

In the Wednesday RT interview, Paul also comments that he thinks the US military involvement in Iraq will continue despite Paul believing President Donald Trump’s inclination is to support bringing the troops home. That inclination, Paul expects, will continue to be overcome by influences including of neoconservatives in the Trump administration and of neoconservative control in media.

In regard to US policy toward both Iraq and North Korea, Paul also comments that the desire for war profits contributes to the US government favoring intervention and militarism. Instead, Paul says at the interview’s conclusion that he thinks it is necessary for the US “to have a completely different foreign policy designed to have peace and trade with people and to talk with people when we have our disagreements.”]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/08/ron-paul-it-looks-like-the-us-will-be-in-iraq-until-the-us-is-bankrupt/Thu, 08 Mar 2018 18:37:21 GMT Hypersonic WarRPI Staffhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/07/hypersonic-war/Wed, 07 Mar 2018 19:41:54 GMT The Federal Reserve Wins in the Texas Democratic PrimaryAdam Dickhttp://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/

When Texas Democratic Party primary voters filled out their ballots on Tuesday, they encountered two propositions, on which they were invited to vote “for” or “against,” that mentioned the Federal Reserve. One proposition said the party should promote a “national jobs program” for infrastructure projects financed through the Federal Reserve. The other proposition proclaimed that Texans should “have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at a 0% interest rate.” The voters approved both propositions, as they did the other ten propositions on the ballot, with over 90 percent support.

These results may be disappointing for people who understand the detriments of the Federal Reserve, as described in detail in Ron Paul’s book End the Fed, and who think the Federal Reserve should be abolished. But, the results are also understandable. People want good things, whether more jobs or new, improved infrastructure or relief from interest payments on loans, and they are willing to use the Federal Reserve as a means to achieve such.

At the same time, I suspect that Texas Democratic primary voters would not have as overwhelmingly supported propositions stating that the Federal Reserve should be used to support a big increase in drug war incarceration or in the rounding up and deporting of people who are in America in violation of United States immigration laws. More than ten percent of the voters, and maybe even a majority, would, I expect, oppose such proposals given their disagreement with the goals. There also would have been less support for a proposition supporting the Federal Reserve’s long history of facilitating the US government’s militarism and wars.

Here is the text of the two propositions that mention the Federal Reserve:

Proposition #2 Student Loan Debt:

Should everyone in Texas have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at a 0% interest rate, as relief for the crushing burden of debt and an investment in the next generation of Americans?

Proposition #5 National Jobs Program:

Should the Democratic Party promote a national jobs program, with high wage and labor standards, to replace crumbling infrastructure and rebuild hurricane damaged areas, paid for with local, state, and federal bonds financed through the Federal Reserve at low interest with long term maturities?]]>http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/congress-alert/2018/march/07/the-federal-reserve-wins-in-the-texas-democratic-primary/Wed, 07 Mar 2018 18:47:08 GMT